Whoopi Goldberg Quotations

Whoopi Goldberg is an award-winning American comedian, film actress and radio DJ.

Sourced

The name was a fluke. A joke. It started when I was doing A Christmas Carol in San Diego. We'd sit backstage and talk about names we'd never give our children, like Pork Pie or Independence. Of course, now people are walking around with those names. A woman said to me, "If I was your mother, I would have called you Whoopi, because when you're unhappy you make a sound like a whoopee cushion. It sounds like a fart." It was like "Ha-ha-ha-ha—Whoopi!" So people actually started calling me Whoopi Cushion. After about a year, my mother said, "You won't be taken seriously if you call yourself Whoopi Cushion. So try this combination: Whoopi Goldberg."
- Playboy interview, Playboy magazine, June 1988

Most of all, I dislike this idea nowadays that if you're a black person in America, then you must be called African-American. Listen, I've visited Africa, and I've got news for everyone: I'm not an African. The Africans know I'm not an African. I'm an American. This is my country. My people helped to build it and we've been here for centuries. Just call me black, if you want to call me anything.
- The Daily Telegraph interview, 20 April 1998 http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa5391/is_200110/ai_n21478575

I know it wasn't rape-rape. I think it was something else, but I don't believe it was rape-rape.
- In defense of Roman Polansky. http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/culture/lucyjones/100003657/whoopi-goldberg-defends-roman-polanski-it-wasnt-rape-rape/

Thanks! Ever since I was a little kid, I wanted this! You don't know...my brother sitting there, he says "Thank God we don't have to listen to anymore... you can do it now!" My mom's home, everyone's watching... I have to thank the people at Paramount; I have to thank Jerry Zucker for taking the time he took before he decided to use me because he was sure it was for me... I have to thank Patrick Swazye... he was a stand up guy and went to them and said "I wanna do it with her"... I wanna thank Demi... I wanna thank everybody who makes movies... I come from New York; as a kid, I lived in the projects and you're the people I watched...you're the people that made me wanna be an actor... I'm so proud to be here, I'm proud to be an actor and I'm gonna keep on acting, and thank you so much!
- Best Supporting Actress of 1990, Ghost http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FyHo8LyroI4

I am very attractive and get cuter the older I get. I'm even getting -- well, not statuesque, but I'm growing. I'm expanding. That's the best way to put it.

If there wasn't something called acting they would probably hospitalize people like me. The giddiness and the joy of life is the moving and grooving, the exploration.

When you are kind to someone in trouble, you hope they'll remember and be kind to someone else. And it'll become like a wildfire.

I've learned to take time for myself and to treat myself with a great deal of love and a great deal of respect 'cause I like me. I think I'm kind of cool.